1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for separating a plurality of sheets laminated in the form of a composite film, which is available in an image recording process.
2. Description of the Background Art
In a general image recording unit, for a printing process an unexposed photosensitive film is drawn out from a long film which is wound in the form of a roll and attached onto an outer peripheral surface of a drum in a prescribed length to be exposed through irradiation with a laser beam or the like. The exposed films formed with latent images are successively rolled-up and a number of rolled-up exposed films are developed by an automatic developing apparatus or processor which is provided independently of the image recording unit, for preparing a number of process films through single development.
Therefore, films exposed by the image recording unit must be temporarily carried to the automatic developing apparatus while the same are rendered not exposed by external light, to be charged into and developed in the automatic developing apparatus. Thus, these steps are so complicated that productivity is inevitably reduced.
In recent years, on the other hand, a composite film requiring no developing step is provided. As shown in FIG. 1A, a composite film 1 for image recording is formed by a base sheet 3 provided with a color material layer 2 and a stripping sheet 5 which is separably stuck to the color material layer 2 through an adhesive layer 4, and the stripping sheet 5 is generally formed to be smaller in thickness as compared with the base sheet 3.
When this composite film 1 is exposed, a color material portion which is irradiated with a laser beam in the color material layer 2 loses bonding strength with respect to the base sheet 3, and is separated and removed from the base sheet 3 along with the adhesive layer 4, following separation of the stripping sheet 5, as shown in FIGS. 1B and 1C. Thus, a base sheet, i.e., an image formation sheet 7 (image recording film) recording image information is obtained. In another type of composite film, a portion of a color material layer 2 irradiated with a laser beam acquires bonding strength with respect to a base sheet 3, and a color material portion not irradiated with the laser beam is separated and removed from the base sheet 3 along with a stripping sheet 5 in this case.
The aforementioned composite film 1 is also provided in the form of a rolled long film in general, and an operation of forming an image on the composite film 1 which is cut into a proper length and exposing the same is continuously performed so that the cut film is generally handled as a square sheet type composite film 1 after the exposure.
An unnecessary sheet must be separated and removed from the exposed square sheet type composite film 1 in order to obtain the image formation sheet 7. No means of efficiently separating and removing the unnecessary sheet from the exposed composite film 1 has yet been established in the image recording unit employing the composite film 1, under the present circumstances.
In the image recording unit employing such a composite film 1, the stripping sheet 5 falls into disuse after the exposure, and this unnecessary sheet 5 is collected and discarded after separated from the base sheet 3.
In general, a collection area such as a trash can or the like is generally provided in the exterior of a processing unit such as the image recording unit so that the unnecessary sheet carried from the processing unit is dropped and collected therein. On the other hand, there has been made a trial of carrying the unnecessary sheet inside a ring-shaped guide for rolling and collecting the sheet therein.
If the collection area such as a trash can is provided, however, a space is required in the exterior of the processing unit and the space for installing the unit is disadvantageously increased. Further, unnecessary sheets simply dropped in the collection area bulkily heap up therein, and hence the size of the collection area must be increased in order to increase the amount of collection. On the other hand, the method of collecting the unnecessary sheets while rolling the same inside the ring-shaped guide is impractical since trouble such as jamming readily takes place in collection and the amount of collection is limited to several sheets.
The present invention is not restricted to the collection of the aforementioned unnecessary sheets, but is also applicable to the simple and compact collection of various types of sheets such as photographs and printed matters and ink sheets in DDCP (digital direct color proofer).